Top 5 Sales Trends to Follow in 2021

This year has been the definition of change, and with 2021 so close your company must be ready to adapt to the change. Get ready to reevaluate, enhance, and develop in the upcoming year! 

Sales Trend #1: Use Automation and AI to Enhance Sales

AI and automation are only just beginning. Collis says in the 9 Latest Sales Trends 2021 that AI is predicted to perform 40% of sales tasks currently. Three years from now it is predicted that AI will perform 139% of sales tasks. Imagine the possibilities of what your company could do if it were to incorporate AI now. 

The use of IT automation and AI increases a salesman’s productivity immensely. They take care of the repetitive processes and allow the salesmen to focus solely on selling. More specifically, AI does the gathering and interpreting of the customers buying trends, sending suggestions to customers based on past purchases, and provides your business a forecast for buying and selling trends. With those major processes being done by AI and automation, the salesmen have their valuable time back to make more sales and work on marketing campaigns to grow your business. 

Luckily, in the sales industry there is already a product with built automation technology.

A power dialer for example, not only lets you automate your dialing experience, but you can automate the tedious task of leaving voicemail after voicemail. Simply record a message and once you hear a beep, click to drop the recording and move on instantly to the next call.  You can even personalize it by saying “Hi James…” before dropping the recording. This way since they hear their name, they’re much more likely to call back. In addition, you can automate tasks via workflows for specific calls.  This can include sending an email, posting a lead into a CRM system, and more. 

Sales Trend #2: Build an Emotional Connection With Your Customers

Building an emotional connection and personalized experience can be fairly easy to do over the phone. Through customer notes the telemarketer can be trained to adjust their dialogue to best appeal to the customer. Telemarketers can also use their voices to sound more appealing and relatable to gain the customers trust. One thing to note, however, is that nearly 60% of the buying process is done BEFORE talking to a salesperson. This means your company’s online presence is doing more than half of the buying process for your sales team. 

So what does this mean for your company’s online presence? Shouldn’t it be personalized and provide an emotional connection as well? 

The answer to the latter is YES your company should provide personalized experiences in every way it can. The answer to the former is that your company’s online presence needs to provide options to create an account, profile, subscription or something similar. Giving options like those creates an emotional connection between the customer and the company. They feel like they have a place within the company and they feel taken care of. Therefore, use whatever online presence your company has to build that emotional connection. 

Sales Trend #3: Brainstorm With Other Teams 

In 2021 your company needs to strive to collaborate the sales team with other crucial departments like marketing, customer support, and IT. It has become outdated to keep departments compartmentalized. They need to be involved with each other to take your company’s sales to the next level in the upcoming year. 

Consider how each department has a role in the conversion rate. Customer support adds value to the customers experience, IT maintains and improves the websites and other online channels, the sales team manages the pipelines, and the marketing team gets the attention of prospects and engages customers to continue purchasing. 

Now the question remains, how does your company bring these departments together? 

The answer is through a shared CRM and pipeline. Of course not all the departments will use it for the same purposes, but this lets all departments know what they are working towards and lets them share information more freely. 

Sales Trend #4: Create an Omnichannel Sales Experience

The year 2020 made great strides in the multiple channel buying experience. While this is still relatively new, it is a must have for this upcoming year. 

Since we know that a large portion of the buying process is independent of a salesperson, the buyers are spending most of their time on your company’s channels. If your company only has one channel, then this is something you will want to change in the new year. Buyers no longer want to be tied to one channel and often switch between channels when they have options. 

To reach more consumers and reach a more diverse group of consumers, you must have options that allow them to choose which channel they are most comfortable with. As I said before your customers might also use several of the channels, so be sure your company has a CRM capable of storing and organizing information from several channels.  

In today’s era, having the ability to contact consumers or businesses through different channels of communication is vital. The Dolphin Power Dialer allows for communication via voice, email, or text, depending on the customer’s preference. The Fox Answering Service platform allows for omni-channel communication with different clients including voice, real-time 2 way texting, and email. Consider those options as your company heads into the new year. 

Sales Trend #5: Be Creative

Companies in recent years have adapted to the individualist culture that has been emerging in the USA. Consumers want to know what your company stands for, what it does for the community, and how it can add value to them. With that being said, your company should give creative liberty to each department to experiment tactics and marketing that will draw attention to the uniqueness of the company. The more creative the better! 

Continue reading how to properly qualify your leads.

Works Cited 

“9 Latest Sales Trends 2021 You Should Be Aware Of”. Liinea.Com, 2021, https://liinea.com/9-salestrends-2021. Accessed 12 Dec 2020.

“Sales Strategy: How To Improve Calls, Leads, And Deals | EVS7”. EVS7, 2021, https://www.evs7.com/sales/sales-strategy-how-to-improve-calls-leads-and-deals-examples. Accessed 28 Dec 2020.

“B2B Sales Trends 2021”. Vainu.Com, 2021, https://www.vainu.com/blog/b2b-sales-trends/. Accessed 29 Dec 2020.